Go Home Stella. You're Drunk.

     As I look out the window, the sun shining down on the blanket of snow is a beautiful sight to behold. It would be better if this were December, and not March.
     Winter took its sweet time getting here. Now don't get me wrong, I love good snowfall. What strikes me as funny is how quickly we all seemed to forget it was still Winter. Most of the season was really mild, and actually pretty nice. Nice enough to get us all to let our guard down. Then Stella showed up.
     Stella's the relative nobody wants to have visit. You know the one. The kids love her because she's fun and they get to stay home from school when she visits. She drives you crazy because she blows through your life like a tornado and leaves destruction in her wake. Stella's the one who leaves the bread loaf untied, lipstick on your glasses and a cigarette butt on a plate in the sink. You find her clothes all over the place after she leaves, and the dogs look like they've seen something unmentionable. Yeah. Stella's a hoot to have around.
     What cracked me up about her visit was how folks reacted. Schools and activities closed like they normally did, but businesses seemed unable to get on the same page. Working in retail, I was a little surprised we stayed open while Stella was having her first gin and tonic in the living room. Then again, in the 12 years I've been at the mall, I've seen it close only once or twice. Malls and movie theaters will be the only buildings standing after the apocalypse.
     While Stella was passed out in between rounds of drunken karaoke, the plows ran and cleared the streets. Apparently, it was clear enough for folks to travel and make their way back to their homes after the weekend. We get a lot of customers from Canada, and they didn't seem to think the storm was that bad. Trekking through 24 inches of snow to get a new shirt must be routine in the Great White North. Here it just seems a little silly. It's all good though. That silliness keeps me employed. It helps to live within walking distance of the mall. Yep, we'll be open. Come on in, Stella. Have a drink.

Reset, Reset, Reset

     So here I sit, watching the the screen as the little circle of dots goes through its motions. Somewhere in the time between powering down two nights ago and booting tonight, My computer went brain dead.
     What I found surprising wasn't the crash itself, but there was no blue screen of death. Just a screen announcing Windows has failed to start and offering options. It seemed kind of silly to have and option to continue to Windows when it just crashed. I gave it a click just for grins. Nope. No joy, just another crash.
     Back to the menu of options. Now for someone like me, the advanced options button is like giving a kid a Zippo and telling him not to start a fire. I decided on clicking the reset button and letting it reinstall itself. It's cruising along at a snail's pace, but it'll get there eventually. My hope is it'll actually start and I can just get on with my night. If it doesn't, I may just have to click that advanced button and see what havoc I can unleash while rooting around in this thing's brain.
     It's looking good so far. The actual installation screen is up and it's at cranking away. Dammit! The first unexpected error! The process is restarting. If it fails again, I may have to break out the Windows 8 discs and take a step or two back. I'm cool with that. Win8's stable, simple and gets the job done.
     So far, it's gone from changes, to undoing changes, to redoing changes to, holy shit! A start screen! Nope. Automatic repair now. Pulling the internal network card I added may have caused the crash. Let's see what happens. Yeah, that didn't do much. Hello system restore. Good-bye updates.
   I have a feeling this restoration is just an animation to keep me occupied. Twenty minutes in, and we still have the sliding green bar. And my wife calls me impatient. Right. Oh joy! "Finalizing file restore", and another sliding green bar. I'l be seeing that damned thing in my sleep. So in a little under two hours total time, it's finally finished. Rebooting, and... and... wait for it...wait for it...IT'S ALIVE! MWUAAHAHAHAHAA! Sadly, no lightning or other Frankensteinian stuff.
    Now, let's see why the network adapter's such a bandwidth hog...